Talking about Olympic events while ramping up for the next major competition in Tokyo!

Saturday, July 28, 2012

We Park in Driveways and Drive in Parkways - We Record TV to Watch Live Streaming

Wimbledon
has a bit of color on its courts, which fascinates me for some reason (they
normally are required by the tennis club to wear white in its championship).

The Main Blurb

This was my first day of experiencing the Olympics on two
different pieces of technology: my television (with DVR) and my computer (with
live streaming). I made sure my computer was going to be able to broadcast the
streaming video (as long as your cable subscription gets MSNBC and CNBC, it’s
all good), and I was all set to go!

Unfortunately, my computer was purchased way back in 2009, so
it’s a little older. It’s probably a little dirty on the inside with random
viruses that Avast! cannot find or kill. So as I was watching the live
streaming of the men’s 400 IM, right before the finish, my computer froze,
meaning I didn’t get to see the finish.
Fortunately the results were already clear by the time it froze up – Lochte was
gonna win by a huge margin and Phelps was going to miss out on a medal – but it
was still frustrating. My Adobe Flash player has also crashed, but that seems
to be an easier fix.

I really enjoyed the commentators for the swimming portion,
who I believe are Australian. It was a different kind of excitement than Rowdy
Gaines provides on the NBC telecast. I thought that maybe we would have the
normal commentators on the streamcast, but that is not to be.

I also wholeheartedly love the replay aspect of the online
streaming, where you can queue up previously aired material, just in case
something amazing happened that you missed.

It sounds like, according to NBC’s commercials, they will
continue to promote their prime time coverage without telling you the results,
even though technically a lot of people are likely to have watched the online
streaming of the races. I know I made sure to tune in. You also can’t watch
those events that they’re going to highlight in primetime until they’ve
actually aired in primetime. I
haven’t actually seen any gymnastics yet, since I decided to wait till the
evening (it wasn’t a medal day – just qualification). But there will be plenty
of time to watch on the computer.I just
hope my computer can take all the video streaming.

Strange – people are going to stream on their computers to
watch things live, but DVR on their televisions to watch things later!

Mini Blurbs

The women’s basketball match I watched was USA vs. Croatia.
When I tuned in, the US was only up by 3
points with six minutes to go in the third quarter! I watched the rest of
the game, and they did pull away, but it was still a sloppy effort. Good thing
their defense kept Croatia to four points in the first quarter and nine points
in the fourth.

I am going to have to dedicate some time to looking up the
rules for fencing. That sport is nuts. The athletes are strung up with lights a
la Lily from “Modern Family” when she was the flower girl at that wedding. The
foil touches a part of the armor and causes one of the athletes to light up.
Then one (or both?) of the athletes screams with all their might. I’m surprised
that fencers don’t have more vocal problems, what with all the screeching they
do. I will do some research and let you know the rules later. By the way, props
to the gold medalist today, an Italian, who sang her national anthem with all
her might.

Swimmers are being introduced in a way that I’ve seen in
past championships. Unlike the early, suit-era years, where all the swimmers
came out together and the camera panned down the row when they were introduced,
one swimmer is introduced at a time and emerges from the tunnel. In relays, the
teams are introduced together. It gave me a chance to admire Italian Luca
Marin’s mustache.

Brit tennis player Andy Murray has a brother! Jamie! And
they play doubles together! But they lost today. Aw shucks. Better stick to
singles, Andy.

Why do table tennis tables look so much smaller in the
Olympics than they do in our basements? Is it because there’s about a 10 meter
ring of empty space surrounding the Olympic tables, while in our basement it’s
wedged between the Christmas tree and the playhouse?

DirecTV allows me to customize my “guide” button. The first
one I made is channels I normally watch. But I made the second one strictly the
Olympics coverage. So today I am on Olympics guide, and when I flip through the
channels I am only seeing the channels in the guide. It’s pretty sweet. And a
part was replaced on my receiver so I can watch TV in the afternoon and it
doesn’t freeze up on me anymore. It helped that it was cloudy today.

Will Michael Phelps continue to be lethargic and
lackadaisical? Or is his medal-less 400 IM performance just an indication of
things to come? He only needs three more medals – not just gold, medals – to be the most decorated
Olympian of all time. C’mon, Mike.

In a 400-m freestyle preliminary, South Korean (and reigning
gold medalist) Park Tae-Hwan was disqualified for early entry into the pool.
Then he was reinstated. Honestly, that was interesting. But what made it more
interesting was NBC host Dan Patrick’s take on the whole situation. His
summary: “Park Tae-Hwan is in the final, [Canadian] Ryan Cochrane is out, and
Rowdy Gaines is very observant.”I think
Dan Patrick is awesome. Kinda wish he still did Sportscenter.

Cycling road races are nuts. I fast forwarded through most
of it and it took me a while. Those cyclists are on a bike for six hours! I
know the scenery was pretty, but six
hours? How in the world do they do multi-day races like the Tour de France?

The worst thing that could have happened to men’s gymnastics
was China having a bad qualifying competition today. Well, one of their top
gymnasts pulled out with an injury, and they were creamed by Great Britain in
their subdivision. Now they are probably going to get their act together and
really be a force when the team medal competition starts up again on Monday.
Never count out China.

Tomorrow we got men’s basketball, women’s gymnastics, and
the men’s 4x100m relay in swimming. Remember when the French made that stupid
remark and the Americans ended up winning the race? Yea, this is the race. Stay
tuned.